LAWRENCE — Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum shattered a glass ceiling to become the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate who didn’t follow in footsteps of a male spouse.
The Kansas Republican went from Maize school board member to U.S. senator by winning the 1978 general election with 53% of ballots cast. She easily prevailed in two re-election campaigns with more than 73% of the vote before retiring from the Senate in 1997.
“I know full well I could not be re-elected today,” said Kassebaum, who spoke Wednesday at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. “It’s not that I’ve changed so much.”
Kassebaum’s political lineage included her father, Alf Landon, who was a Kansas governor and the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 1936, and a son, Bill, who served as a Republican in the Kansas Legislature.
She was the choice of Kansas voters four decades ago while expressing support for abortion rights, the Equal Rights Amendment and ending apartheid in South Africa. She worked in the Senate to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. She voted for the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, including an override of President Ronald Reagan’s veto. She endorsed a ban on assault weapons and the imposition of a waiting period for purchase of a handgun.
She has spoken against GOP President Donald Trump and endorsed Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Bollier.
Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Kassebaum’s instincts about Kansas politics were sound. Kassebaum had a front-row seat as state Rep. Bill Kassebaum lost the 2004 GOP primary for re-election to the Kansas House after working with Democrats on school finance.
“She knows of what she speaks,” Sebelius said. “It’s hard to tell if she would be challenged by a conservative and whether or not the party has become that divided.”
School board to Senate
Before the Senate, Kassebaum’s only personal experience in elective office was time served on the Maize School Board. She also worked one year in Washington, D.C., as a caseworker for U.S. Sen. James Pearson, a Kansas Republican. The decision to run for Pearson’s open seat followed a recruiting effort by people who wanted a woman to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate, she said. Landon, her father, was skeptical of her candidacy. Her mother, Theo, had other ideas.
“It was a big leap,” Kassebaum said. “I talked to the family about it, who all sort of rolled their eyes. My father did not want me to run. I think he thought I would lose. My mother, who cared not very much about politics, said, ‘Yes, I think you should.’”
She said U.S. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas quietly assisted her campaign by speaking to Kansas Republicans about the type of senator that Kassebaum was capable of being.
She prevailed in a nine-person GOP primary with 30.5% of the vote. She was convinced the crowded field gave her an edge. Other Republicans in that race polled from 1.1% to 24.6%. She went on to defeat 53% to 42% former U.S. Rep. Bill Roy, a Democrat who previously lost a Senate campaign to Dole.
“People were simply surprised to see a little woman running around, going door to door in every town I went to,” Kassebaum said. “People wondered. Will she stand up and be counted?”
Kassebaum chose not to seek a fourth term in 1996 and married former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, who was known in the Senate for brokering compromises and advocating civility. In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Baker to be U.S. ambassador to Japan. Kassebaum and Baker lived there for four years. He passed away in 2014.
Kassebaum resides at a family ranch near Burdick, northwest of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve that she helped establish.
Dole’s sense of humor
Kassebaum said Dole had the mental toughness to persevere when others would have quit. He was severely wounded in combat in Italy during World War II. She considered Dole an “exceptional leader,” who could let his understudy know what he thought with the glance of a “steely eye.”
